


documents that don't exist

by Anonymous



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Coming Out, Epistolary, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-28
Updated: 2008-09-28
Packaged: 2017-10-02 01:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Documents that don't exist, in a history that hasn't happened, with some people who are real, and a great many more who are not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	documents that don't exist

**Author's Note:**

> [Jassy](http://jasmineskie.livejournal.com) wanted a Viggo/Orlando in New Zealand rennaissance; this does not exactly fit the bill, but well, it was supposed to? My thanks to her, and to [Melusina](http://fabu.livejournal.com), for their pointed, thoughtful comments. Please note all email addresses and phone numbers in this story are fictional.

**To: **Jim Nelson &lt;eic@gqmag.com&gt;

**From:** Orlando Bloom &lt;stilltheprettiest@gmail.com&gt;

**Re:** February article

**Date:** 12 November 2008

**Attachment: **gqarticle.doc Open attachment

Jim,

Attached (I hope) is the text for the 'Relationship' article; it's a few hundred words longer than you asked for, so I'm sure you'll want to do some editing. Good luck!

Best,

OB

**To: **Orlando Bloom &lt;stilltheprettiest@gmail.com&gt;

**From: **Jim Nelson &lt;eic@gqmag.com&gt;

**Subject:** Re: February article

**Date:** 13 November 2008

**Attachment:** bloom_02_10_edit1.doc Open as HTML Open as attachment

Orlando —

Thanks for getting back to me well before deadline, you're a prince. My edits are attached -- we're going to have to americanize your spelling and grammar, and we'd like you to come in for another photoshoot. I'll call your people to set it up.

Jim Nelson

Editor-in-Chief, GQ magazine

PS: on a personal note, I never know what to say to a guy who's coming out. Congratulations? Hope that works out for you? I'm happy you're happy? Whatever — circulation's going to go through the ROOF and THAT makes me happy. :)

**To: **Orlando Bloom &lt;stilltheprettiest@gmail.com&gt;

**From: **Jim Nelson &lt;eic@gqmag.com&gt;

**Subject:** Re: February article

**Date**: 17 December 2009

Orlando —

Just to give you a heads-up, we're using one of the shots from last week (not sure yet which) on the February cover.

Jim Nelson

Editor-in-Chief, GQ magazine

****

**Selections from GQ magazine: _The Relationship Issue_ (February 2009)**

****

**Page 17: Contributors**

_Orlando Bloom: Actor_

Orlando Bloom has been in Oscar-winning and critically acclaimed films including the _Lord of the Rings_ trilogy, the _Pirates of the Caribbean_ franchise, _Kingdom of Heaven_, _The Hidden Cemetery_, and _Icarus_. He lives in London and Los Angeles.

**Page 194: Just Like In The Movies (except when it isn't)**

Most of my film roles have had at least some element of romance to them. And most of those romances, like most movie romances, have followed the formula:

Boy meets girl.

Boy loses girl.

Boy gets girl.

Simple, easy to remember. It worked for Will Turner, for Balian of Ibelin, for Peter Whitman. But it didn't work for me.

I met a man.

There goes the first part of the formula; I met Viggo Mortensen in New Zealand, whilst shooting Peter Jackson's brilliant adaptation of Tolkien. I'd been cast as Legolas just as I graduated from drama school; Viggo had been cast the day before he flew to the other side of the world to take a part on the advice of his then twelve-year-old son.

He was jetlagged, and I was hungover, the day we met, but I can't blame Elijah Wood too much for that — my hangover meant that Viggo's soft voice was appealing rather than frustrating, and my splitting headache gave me the ability to sit still rather than being hyperactive; at least, it gave me the choice between sitting still and having my brain leak out of my ears.

(I don't recommend drinking three curaço-and-vodka cocktails, prompted by a freak with freaky blue eyes, as a method of finding someone to fall in love with, mind.)

As for the second part of the formula, I can't say that I've ever lost Viggo. I've gotten lost _with_ Viggo, though. That, in fact, was how we got together at all.

It was January, summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and my birthday had been the week before. We'd just come back from Christmas holidays, gone straight into shooting, and my birthday was on a Thursday, so I was cruelly deprived of a party.

But I got something better.

There was a pile of presents on my dressing table when I came in that day, and amongst them was a pair of hiking boots, with no wrapping, only an ass-ugly bow.

Viggo was the only one who I thought mightn't wrap a present, and I held them up and looked at him.

"You mentioned you hadn't explored Tongariro park yet," he said. I blinked. I had said that, weeks before the holidays, but I hadn't known he'd been paying attention.

"Yeah," I said.

"It's not far from my house, you know," he said, picking up his character's gloves. I'd been watching him transform into Aragorn for months by then, but it was the first time I'd thought that my verb was wrong; that he wasn't transforming but transubstantiating; that his ability to make the Ranger appear was a miracle. He slid the gloves on slowly, carefully, settling his fingers in the right places, flexing his joints so that the leather creaked and rasped. "Come over Sunday, and I'll take you."

I smiled. "Thanks," I said, not asking if he meant it; I knew he wouldn't make an offer he didn't mean.

We worked six-day weeks on _Rings_, and that Saturday, Viggo and I were on different sets. He found me at the end of the day, and his first words were, "Look, I know I stink to high heaven, there was an incident in the stables and Dom ran away before I could kick his ass, but I wanted to find you before you went home, and that kind of … precluded …. taking a shower, but I'm going to, so if you want to come back to my place with me so we can get an early start in Tongariro, the drive won't be cruel and unusual punishment."

My mouth was slightly open. "Um, yes?" It seemed the safest thing to say.

"Yes what?"

"I don't know, man, what was the question?"

He walked away. I blinked. Just as he was about to disappear around a cluster of electrical cables, he called, "I don't know either, but you said yes anyway — where I come from, that makes you pretty damn easy, Bloom!"

"Why you —" I blurted, before he turned his head and grinned.

"Meet you by my car in half an hour?" he said, and I nodded dumbly. I liked the guy, respected him, but Christ, sometimes he was just _weird_.

A takeaway Thai meal later, both of us were awash with local beer, and it seemed like the best idea ever to go stargazing. "I grew up in Argentina," Viggo told me as he pocketed his keys. "I know all the constellations."

I followed him down the street. He was carrying his camera, an extra roll of film tucked in his pocket, and the bulge of the lens, sticking out from his chest, seemed like the horn of a unicorn or a stegosaurus.

"Come on," he said, stepping off the sidewalk, into a gap between some bushes. "We need to get away from the streetlamps. There's a clearing that'll be perfect."

"You know how to get back?" I asked.

"Sure," he said. "I'm the Ranger, remember?"

"Right," I said, and followed him. I'd have followed him even if he had said no. Which he should have done. There was no clearing, and when we turned around, the trees stood in dark rows, no trace of the path we'd followed in.

I raised an eyebrow, although he couldn't see it.

"I have flash," Viggo said. "We'll be fine."

We were fine, in that we got out. Eventually. Some of the photographs Viggo took that night, trying to light the way out, he turned into paintings in the months ahead; some of them were of me. Some of them he developed and locked in a safe-deposit box; there's at least three I've never seen.

We were better than fine. We walked out of that forest—titchy little thing; you'd think we'd have blundered on the edge by pure accident at some point in the night, but no—with our fingers linked, in the pearl-grey Wellington dawn.

I wouldn't say as I've got Viggo, either, or that he's got me — there are days I still can't figure him out, days he won't answer the phone when I call. It's not that simple, or that easy. But we always end up back together, and our fingers always seem to fit together, and that's not bad at all. Formulas aren't everything; the kiss of death for a movie sequel is when the executives think they've figured out what worked the first time and try to reproduce it. My life's not a movie, and I'm not my characters, and I admit I'm glad of it.

**Circulation records, GQ magazine (internal memo)**

12/09: X total: Y newsstand Z subscription

01/10: X total: Y newsstand Z subscription

02/10: A total: B newsstand Z subscription

(where X, Y, and Z equals the usual number of issues and A and B equal a fifteen-percent increase over X and Y, respectively.)

**Excerpts from randomly chosen examples of the mail received by the offices of Evelyn O'Neill, February 26, 2009:  
**

…i think you were very brave and i hope you are happy and if you are not you can always call me! my brother thinks hes gay too and i know what to say to him and i think i would know what to say to you too because i love him and i love you too!

…The difference between your life and a movie is that in a movie, sin does not have repercussions. Movies are fictional, but in real life, actions have consequences. Your actions have already been written and recorded in the Book of Life, yet they may be erased by future actions. There is still time to repent, Mr. Bloom, and I urge you to do so!...

Oh, please, like we didn't all know. You're a decent actor, but you were _shit_ at lying about this…

Congratulations on coming out. It's hard, but it's the right thing to do. I hope you have the support of your family and friends in this endeavor and that your partnership continues happily for many years.

…wonder if you would consider involvement with the Ginevra Foundation, which provides services to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning teens in the Los Angeles urban area; I may be contacted at…

Since you beat the point spread on how soon you'd come out of the closet, I'm offering you 50% of the net take, which amounts to $204.82 in American dollars… (Note: this letter was turned over to the Los Angeles Police Department; no prosecution resulted.)

**Gawker.com, March 3, 2009:**

**Orlando Bloom &amp; Viggo Mortensen** (Bleecker and W. 3rd St.) Wow, they really are gay! Eating crepes (nutella and banana) at Indigo Joe's at ten in the morning, dressed down in jeans and an old-man cardigan (Bloom) and a London Calling T-shirt (Mortensen). Tucked away in the corner, so no dish to report. Pity.

**Excerpt from "The Music Man," interview with Elijah Wood, Entertainment Weekly magazine, November 2009:  
**

Q: When Orlando Bloom came out earlier this year, he mentioned you —

A: Oh, yeah, I am the proud freak with freaky blue eyes! Yeah, he called me up and asked me if it was okay to say that, and I told him to do whatever he needed to do and my reputation was his for the trashing. He's been through a lot to get to that place, you know, where he's comfortable saying he's gay, and hey, if he needs to — but I would just like to note, for the record, that it was only two drinks, and that it was not my fault that Orlando was hungover that day, because he can't hold his liquor for shit. I love him and all, but he's the biggest lightweight I know.

Q: So he and his partner [Viggo Mortensen] have your support?

A: Of course, they're Fellowship, they're family. That was the first experience of my life where I realized what a working environment could do, how it could really create bonds that were like family, and that's been a big part of what I'm trying to do with Codebreaker, why the staff's so small, why we're all in and out of each other's offices all day…

**Transcript of May 2010 comments by Sir Ian McKellan, with Claire Romilly, BBC2:**

IM: Yes, I do think that Johnny Depp's death had a lot to do with Orlando's decision, after all, here was a man, an actor, whom he admired enormously, who had what Orlando wanted, the simultaneous privacy and openness of a relationship that was publicly acknowledged and still had boundaries set upon it, and he died utterly senselessly [in a car accident]. I rather suspect that Orlando went to the funeral and thought _that could well have been me, _and didn't like the thought.

CR: Mr Bloom has mentioned you as an influence as well…

IM: Certainly I encouraged him to come out and gave him as much support as I could when he did—it was difficult, not, you understand, because of reluctance on my part, but the timing was simply …

CR: That was when you were undergoing treatment for —

IM: Thyroid cancer. I was extraordinarily lucky, not only in the success of the treatment, which was marvelous, but in the number of my friends who rallied 'round. Some days, I quite forgot that I was in hospital! Orlando and Viggo came—I suppose there's no better defense against journalists than to be at the bedside of an ill friend, and Judi Dench, whom I had known for many years, was there constantly, I haven't seen so much of her since we worked together…

**Excerpt from the note on the kitchen table at 62 Godeau Way, Los Angeles, California, 30 June 2010**

****

...dishwasher's empty.

\- Will pick up dog food next week (is Sidi still on the low-carb stuff?)

Phone messages

\- Katrina Monaghan invited you over for PSP3 on Thursday evening. She promises not to cheat.

\- Dr. Kim's office wants to confirm your Tuesday 10:00 appointment.

\- Global Green's press conference will be delayed two hours; also called your cell phone.

\- Listen to Mr. Mortensen's message yourself and give me a raise.

_Felicia_

**Text messages between 310-446-4613 (Los Angeles area code; cell phone) and 208-562-7461 (Idaho area code; Blackberry), 30 June 2010  
**

&lt;310-446-4613&gt; whr r u?

&lt;208-562-7461&gt; driving

&lt;310-446-4613&gt; u skrd felicia

&lt;208-562-7461&gt; ?

&lt;310-446-4613&gt; or scarred. smthg.

&lt;208-562-7461&gt; ?

&lt;310-446-4613&gt; arsehole. ♥

&lt;208-562-7461&gt; u2

&lt;310-446-4613&gt; coldplay

&lt;208-562-7461&gt; plastic ppl of the universe

&lt;310-446-4613&gt; ...w/e. ok. yes

&lt;208-562-7461&gt; yes?

&lt;310-446-4613&gt; yes.

  
  



End file.
